How should I start this article? It isn’t a lesson as to how to teach others, although I could provide some guidance in that direction. This commentary is kinda like a follow-up to a training. Our grandkids stayed the night here at the Ford Homestead. Alex and Gabi were well behaved and perfect guests here at the homestead. Ok, I would not believe that either, they were normal kids spending the night at the grandparents. They even were allowed to stay up an hour later than their normal bed time, but if their parents are reading this I am just kidding, “Not”.
The next morning our grandson Alex was aggravating, I mean playing with Tres. After a few minutes of push and shove (actually both words mean the same thing) between the Tres and Alex, there was a moment of, disciplined movements. I should note that Tres is big enough that in a contest of pushing or pulling he possibly could beat Alex.
Now to the disciplined movements. Alex standing in front of the Tres said, “Sit”, and pointed at him. To no one’s surprise, Tres sit. Then Alex said, “Down”, and pointed down, he had to say it twice, and then Tres lay down. This same process was repeated a couple times as Tres obeyed the commands of Alex. I was proud that all the training had paid off, so I gave Alex a couple treats to share with Tres.
It is amazing how smart these young kids of today are, and how easily they learn new things. Would you believe, it only took me 3 months to teach Alex how to give the commands to Tres for him to sit and lay down? My goodness you get upset quickly, I was just kidding!
Alex learned to give these commands by observing our lead trainer, here at the Ford Homestead. We are in hopes that our lead trainer will someday be able to teach the Tres to not bark at everything and everyone, except for bad people.
Let us change the topic. The new topic is, “personal coffee cups”, you know the one I am thinking of, it is the one you use daily either at home or at work. Years ago, when I was employed, we had coffee in the break room. I was usually the first person to arrive each day and I would put the pot of coffee on, usually before I turned on the lights, but after turning off the alarm systems. I would go to my office and get my cup, return to the break room and fill my cup with coffee. I would return to my office and start the day.
During the day I would repeat the coffee run a couple times. After the last cup of coffee I would go to the boy’s room and rinse the cup. Note I did not say wash, I rinsed it out. As you might think, the cup was stained on the inside from the repeated coffee.
One day there was a new cleaning lady and she, cleaned my cup. The next morning I picked up my, “Clean Cup”. Being surprised and not happy at the cleanliness of my cup, I scheduled a meeting with the cleaning lady that afternoon. When Janie came in, I explained that my cup was not to be washed, the stains made the coffee taste better. Janie told the other lady and my cup was never again cleaned by anyone other them me.
What made me think of that old story, I just washed my cup here at the house. Yes, I do occasionally, let’s say about once a month, wash the stains out of my Homestead cup. It does give the cup a new look but it really does not change the taste of the coffee.
May your stains be easily removed!
Don Ford
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